The benefits of recycling in Health and Social Care settings

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As a workplace, you’re considered to have a ‘Duty of Care’ to ensure that the waste your workplace generates is produced, stored, transported and disposed of without harming the environment. This is set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1990, but new legislation takes this a step further by making workplace recycling a legal requirement.

But there’s more to recycling than complying with legislation! There are lots of other great workplace reasons to recycle, including:

Helping to tackle climate change: According to RecycleNow current UK recycling is estimated to save more than 10-15 million tonnes of CO2 a year – the equivalent to taking 3.5 million cars off the road.
Reducing costs for your workplace: recycling is often cheaper than disposal, and larger organisations could save £400-£1,000 a year per employee WRAP Business Resource Efficiency Guide: Green office guide . Use our business waste calculator to find out how much you could save. 
Helping fulfil the NHS’s : in 2023 the NHS published its NHS Clinical Waste Strategy, aiming to achieve Net Zero across the NHS by 2040. Increasing and promoting your recycling activities will be increasingly important in helping to achieve this ambition.
Managing waste in line with good practice: recycling keeps your workplace in line with the revised Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 07-01: Safe and sustainable management of healthcare waste, which gives you technical guidance and best practice for safely managing healthcare waste and ensuring it’s segregated appropriately.
Contributes to evidencing sustainable practice under the Care Quality Commission (CQC) Single Assessment Framework: this will apply to you if you’re a care provider, local authority or integrated care system. You’ll now need to show and provide evidence that “We understand any negative impact of our activities on the environment, and we strive to make a positive contribution in reducing it and support people to do the same.”
Improving process performance: eliminating and reducing waste will improve the performance of your processes by making them more efficient.
Attracting, motivating and retaining staff: a successful waste reduction and recycling programme depends on staff involvement and team-working, and people who feel part of an organisation and are asked to be involved with projects are more likely to feel valued by their employer.

80% of young people (aged 18-22) entering the workforce ranked tackling single use plastics as important for employers, ahead of reducing electricity and water consumption. 37% said that they would consider a potential employer’s environmental responsibility when looking for a job. – Business in the Community, Lifting the Lid on Waste

It’s also worth acknowledging that employees, service users and investors increasingly scrutinise how organisations operate. Setting bold public targets and demonstrating good practice in waste management sends a powerful message. It shows that your workplace assumes responsibility for the resources it uses and the waste it generates, demonstrates leadership, and shows your workplace to be forward-thinking. 

Good practice case study
Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust increased their domestic waste recycling rate from 25% to 95%. Introducing food waste recycling was a key part of the trust’s plan to overhaul its multi-site waste management systems. The new recycling system, introduced in 2011, began collecting food waste alongside a wide range of dry mixed recyclables. Read the case study for more information.